In Between
by RaiMidori
Summary: There are children and there are their dreams. Children, like stars, cannot help but dream of what ifs and whys, and when your lover is so beautiful and fierce, you cannot help but dream of being a knight yourself, to protect him. Orihime X Uryu. Oneshot.


_**Disclaimer: Bleach does not belong to me. It belongs solely to its creator, and this work is pure fiction.**_

_**Author's Note: This is a birthday present for Ishida Uryu, whose birthday was yesterday, on November 11. I think I've graduated from my over descriptive style for this one. I will probably go back to a more descriptive style once my newest multi-chapter is up, and Clutching at Air is finished. I think this one came out very well, and I hope I've improved. I hope all of you readers will indulge me and attempt to read through this. Reviews are much appreciated. **_

_**Enjoy,**_

_**-RaiMidori**_

_**POV: Orihime **_

* * *

He's in pain, all the time.

When I look at him, with his beautiful lapis lazuli eyes glinting like a wildfire -so fierce and unkempt and untamed- I can tell it, I can almost _feel _it like it's a part of myself.

He's in pain.

His heart is a roiling mass of sadness, anger and _pain, pain, pain_, even though _he's_the knight and he's not supposed to feel that way. Knights are supposed to be proud, confident, and, yes, maybe even _happy_ when they feel that strength well up inside of them: _I know I can save this angel. _Yet his heart is anything but, no, it's enlaced with shadows and the voices of people he had left behind in his early days, stained a dull, metallic grey like his hair, and a tint of crimson from battles that somehow shook his core, his heart, and never left him.

Yes, he is in pain, a lot of pain. So much pain that, sometimes, all I want is just to be able to take it all away from him, just be able to silence all the things that want to hurt him and protect him as if _I_was the knight.

But I am not.

Orihime is a girl that is not weak, but she is not very strong, either. She is not as strong as Ichigo, whose heart is unbreakable, not as strong as Rukia, who finds solace in sadness and not as strong as Chad, who knows his limits but still exceeds them. And she is definitely not as strong as Uryu, with that blue aura of his: Blue fire is a lot hotter than orange fire, and his eyes –a lion protecting his lioness- flare with the strength, with the brightness of a thousand stars. But she's not weak enough to be a damsel in distress, one that knights like Uryu love to save because the only words that ever come out of their mouths are either a plea for help or a 'thank you', accented with a breathtaking smile. So she is caught in the middle- not quite a saver, but not quite hoping to be saved, either.

But Uryu doesn't mind- we are saving Rukia, after all, and not some Rapunzel girl with hair as long as a stone tower.

It's a good thing.

That night, he sets up camp for us in the forest by the Rukon district. The elms bend with accusations, pointing their leafy fingers at our tree bark-coloured tent, and screeching with hollowesque voices:_They're here, they're here, they're here- save us save us save us. _Uryu pointedly gives them a disgusted look and opens the flap of our tent, shedding his cape onto the polyester floor chapping the parched soil.

There's something about him- I can't help but feel so lost when I look at him. And when he's sitting with his chest bare and his eyes closed, massaging his temples tiredly in the corner of the flimsy tent wavering in the barest of winds, I can almost swear my heart is exploding out of my chest like rickety clockwork that refuses to die. There is no campfire because we are afraid that we will be found, but I wish there is a lamp or even a _candle, _so I can see his face glowing in the light and his cheekbones casting shadows over his eyes like the warrior he is.

Around midnight, the trees grow eerily silent, somehow accepting the fact that we are there and a part of their spirit-infested world. Uryu is laying unbearably still under his sleeping bag's covers, shivers trickling down his naked back. It is at times like these that I feel that no matter how close we are, we are still so far apart, so distant. I feel like my knight has grown tired of reaching for a girl who is in between, not quite enough for him on either side.

But he is still a knight.

And he is a knight and a gentleman, because he lays the warmer, bigger sleeping bag over me and the cape that smells as sweet as him under me while he curls up in an old and thin sleeping bag and still somehow looks like he's sleeping comfortably so I won't have to worry. But I can see the hands clamped on his shoulders, and the way his body is still so small and fragile and susceptible to the cold. Uryu is still a child, and I am still a child, too. But there is nothing wrong with children chasing their dreams, right?

Uryu is a fairytale knight, but I can be a knight, too, sometimes.

And on nights like these, when the world holds its breath to watch the bloody play rolling in front of them, and the rain always begins with such a chilling draft, there is only one way we can survive: together. That's what I think.

So for the first time in my life, I am sleeping with a man –a boy, because he and I are both still children- but I don't quite mind it. I crawl into his sleeping bag and drape the bigger, warmer one over us and it's _so warm_, and my heart is fluttering with the wings with a thousand monarch butterflies, and my mind, my mind is running in circles, but I still drape my arms over his shoulders and bury my face in his sweet-smelling hair because there isn't much else I want but him. Angels make mistakes, too, because he's _awake_and he's tilting his head back and placing his lips on mine in the strong, protective way that belongs only him, my lover. So, somehow, there's that moment that will probably be saturated with emotions in my memories forever. I cannot feel the ground below us, and I can barely feel the blankets around us. There is just me and him, in a cruel, cruel world that is waiting for tomorrow.

Uryu is in still in pain, and I am in pain, now, too.

But as dawn touches the horizon, and the promised _tomorrow_ does come, I have forgotten the world.


End file.
